Crab E’s Eatery

A seafood shack’s fresh and eco-friendly fare has diners hooked

by barbARA REID - Photography by Jared Blais

"Clams Casino" from Crab E's Eatery. Purchase the October issue for the full recipe!

As dawn breaks over the Indian River Lagoon and fishing boats unload their catch onto the dock, Bill Tiedge of Crab E’s Eatery in Sebastian can be found examining and hand-selecting each and every fish. Tiedge is passionate about seafood, but not just any old catch. It must be sustainably caught, of the highest quality, and very, very fresh. In fact, local, quality and fresh are three buzzwords you will hear over and over again from customers patronizing his eatery on Indian River Drive.

Today, all the seafood he selects is caught using eco-friendly fishing practices which mandate that the fish is individually hooked or speared without the use of nets or long lines, thus avoiding the unnecessary entrapment of non-selected fish or the entanglement of marine mammals. “We handle our fish like babies,” Tiedge says. “Even with the divers, if they don’t shoot the fish in the right spot, it damages the meat.”

Daily menu items might include snapper, grouper, mahi mahi, swordfish and wahoo as well as seasonal Florida lobster and clams, locally farmed from the lagoon. Cleaned, boned and filleted, the kitchen works its magic turning out chowders and bisques, jumbo lump crab cakes, fried oysters and wild shrimp scampi, all cooked to order. When seasonally available, they also offer sweet and tender stone crabs from the Florida Keys and Northern catches like cod, haddock and live Maine lobster, shipped overnight. And for those who love their surf-and-turf combos, Tiedge’s considerable experience as a butcher guarantees the finest cuts of quality beef.